Friday, October 14, 2005

Happy place

The work week is almost over. My knitting vacation has almost begun. Starting Monday, my days will consist of long naps, long showers, and long stretches of knitting. And DH says the weather might be good, which will let him get the heck out of the house to golf so I can have the place all to myself. Ahhhhh. I can hardly wait.

And DH is a genius. (Either that, or I'm an idiot - but why quibble.) Last night as we got into bed, he saw that I was frowning grumpily, and asked me what was wrong. "I don't know what knitting to take to Crown on Saturday," I replied.

("Crown" refers to "Crown Tournament", an SCA event which takes place twice a year in every Kingdom [except for one Kingdom where they hold it three times a year]. The main attraction of this event is a double-elimination, single-combat tournament [using rattan sticks as 'swords'] to determine who's going to be the next King and Queen. Very exciting stuff.)

Naturally, he was taken aback. He knows I have about twenty projects in progress all over the house. How could choosing a project for the day possibly be a problem?

So I explained: I need something that will last the whole day - through the five hours of travel time to and from the event and throughout the tournament, which takes hours. And because I'll be knitting and watching the tournament at the same time, I need a project that doesn't require too much attention. Moreover, with knitting deadlines looming, I should knit something that needs to be completed soon. DH also surmised that it should be something that isn't for him, since we're spending the day together (DD, incidentally, will be at Camp Grandma). All of these criteria together eliminate a lot of my WIPs.

So there was a pause as he realised that I really did have a tricky problem, and then he said, "Socks?"

So.
Freaking.Brilliant.

SOCKS! Not only are they something I can work on while watching something else. Not only are they something I need to do ASAP (one of my Christmas presents to DH is a pair of socks - but he doesn't know that, he'll just think I'm making socks ASAP for myself - his feet are only one inch longer than mine, I'm sure he won't notice). Not only will they last me the whole day (because if I finish one pair of socks, I can just start on another pair). But also, they are completely period and will not look the least bit out of place at a medieval event! SOCKS!

It was also lovely to receive jkh's congratulations in the comments on the Stornaway sweater. It wasn't unlike doing socks...just...bigger. Way bigger. Yeah. :) And your comparison of learning a new knitting method to learning a new typing method is a good one. However, rest assured that I am not using the new method on any of my projects yet. First of all, I still look pretty awkward with it, so I'm a bit shy about 'taking it public' right now. But more importantly, my stitches with the new method aren't consistent enough yet to use it on 'real knitting', and the gauge I'm getting with the new method is probably a bit different from the gauge I get normally. So for the moment, I'm just using the new method with practice yarn.

Unfortunately, I've been a bad girl this week and haven't done any practicing since the weekend. Maybe tomorrow on the car ride! I'm certainly looking forward to mastering this thing, because not only does the throwing take more energy, as you say, but more importantly (for me, anyway), it takes more time.

Cape Cod sweater for MIL

I have caught up to The Schedule! Two pattern motifs are done and I'm working on the third. Unfortunately I am nowhere near finished the third motif, which The Schedule wants me to do by the end of Sunday. But for now, at least, I can say that I'm on track. Pictures will come when there is more visible progress compared to the last time I posted a picture.

Secret Garden cardigan for niece

This is bee-yew-tifully on schedule. After this morning's commute, I am very close to finishing up the sleeves. After that, it's just sewing, edging, making the collar, and blocking. Okay, there's also the small matter of finding a button which works with the cardigan and sewing it on. But I'm very hopeful that The Perfect Button can be found in my (kind of meagre) button stash. I'm keeping my fingers crossed about that.